The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1887-06-14

The lamentable effect of trying to cor
ner an article of universal use is shown
in the coffee trade. to-day. There New
York firms doing a heavy business in
coffee failed yesterday, and there will be
great nervousness ON the Coffee Exchange
to-day, Notwithstanding the fact that
the market rallied during the af-
ternoon and closed strong. One
of these firms is said to
have half a million bags on hand. The
bull syndicate had members in Rio
Janiero and the inability of these parties
to promptly cooperate with the New
York members when prices sagged Is
said to be the cause of these failures. a
fall of ST cents to Is cents is the case of
the present situation of affairs-a fall so
great that the bears co-operated with the
bulls to save the market, if possible. But
they could not stay the panic.
There will be little sympathy with
the losers. Theirs was the most selfish
aim in the world, to levy a tax on every
family in the United States in order to
enrich themselves, proceeding on the
same moral plan with the robbing of a
railroad train. They had forced coffee
up far beyond its real value and
every poin. they raised the
staple was magnified by the time the
small producer felt the effect. These
combinations are conspiracies against
the whole world of buyers for an I'M
earned and dishonest profit, but the law
cannot reach them and the moral sense
of the community is too obtuse to con-
femn them as they should be con-
demned.
Few of the great corners" are sue
cessful. Where they are, the successful
operators are tempted to try it again,
generally with disastrous results and
men have died poor whose pow
erty was consequence of the
very sort of operation which had
once before made them suddenly
wealthy. A very few men, like Philip
ID. Armour, of Chicago, have survived a
number of corners, generally through
keeping a cool head in the midst of the
excitement attending a ''corner" and
withdrawing in time, letting the less
wary suffer the losses ensuing from a
declining market.
1t is a well known fact among those
who study these things that speculation
except within legitimate bounds, injures
trade. To buy when commodities are
plentiful and cheap in order to
hold these commodities until the
price shall rise again is to aid in estab-
fishing an equilibrium, but to buy and
contract for all the goods obtainable of a
certain kind m order to create an artifi-
cial scarcity is to dam up the current
of trade and make it irregular. Con
sumers are apt, too, to make their habits
conform to the altered state of affairs and
when the damned up current resumes
its flow it finds slackened demand. Nc
one is benefited by the corner except
the syndicate" or ''nng" engaged i'm it,
il it is successful.
Every man, woman or child who takes
his or her cup of collector breakfast this
morning is interested in the news that
the ''corner" is broken. If the syndicate
had been successful coffee would have
been dear for some time to come. for the
operators would have held ON so long as
here was any profit in doing so. and
would merely have allowed enough to go
into consumption to maintain the de
mand and enable them to realize some
thing on which to keep up their opera
lions. That their grip has been loosened
may be sorry thing to them, but to ne
one else